FBI Needs Help on Finding Missing Autistic Teen

On February 26, 2024, Katie Proudfoot went to wake up her 14-year-old son for school. To her surprise, he was nowhere to be found.  

Sebastian Wayne Drake Rogers had spent the previous day with his mother. The pair shopped at a department store. They played video games at a bowling alley. They had dinner at a local restaurant before heading home for the evening.

After returning to their home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Katie and Sebastian prepared for bed. They said goodnight sometime between 9 and 10 p.m.

“Katie told us a little bit before 10 p.m. she heard a loud bang coming from Sebastian’s room, so she yelled out to ask him if he was OK, to which he responded that he was,” said Detective Brandon Carter from the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office. “She told him to go to bed because they had to be up early for school the next morning.”

Katie called her husband. He was out of town in southwest Tennessee for work. The two of them spoke for nearly two hours before she went to sleep around midnight.  

The next morning was the beginning of what would become a massive search effort for Sebastian. 

“Katie called her husband and told him that she couldn’t find Sebastian—that he wasn’t in his room or anywhere in the house,” said Carter. 

Katie got into her car and drove around the neighborhood. She went to Sebastian’s school, which was less than a mile away from their house. She searched for Sebastian before returning home.

During this time, her husband called the local emergency communication center to report Sebastian as missing.  

In the early days of the search, it seemed Sebastian vanished without a trace.  

“This case was kind of a question mark,” said FBI Nashville Special Agent Robert Barrett. “Mom wakes up, and he is just gone. There’s a question mark, and we’ve got to figure out what happened.”

That question mark only grew bigger as the search went on. 

“Sebastian did not take any clothes, shoes, money, food, or his cell phone,” said Carter. “His cell phone and cash were both lying on the dining room table where they had been the day before, when he went to bed. According to Katie, there was a small yellow flashlight that she thinks was missing, but that was the only thing that appeared to be gone from the house.”

Missing Person Poster: Sebastian Rogers

Link to Sebastian’s Missing Person Poster you

The first week in the search for Sebastian was a massive community effort. There was also an interagency collaboration. It involved the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and the Emergency Management Agency. The Hendersonville Police, Gallatin Police, and Tennessee Highway Patrol participated as well. The FBI, Metro Police, and Wilson County Sheriff’s Office assisted. Sumner County EMS, Sumner County Emergency Response Team, and several other agencies throughout Tennessee were involved too.

“The search consisted of about a four-and-a-half-mile radius around Sebastian’s home,” said Carter. “There were roughly 2,000 searchers equipped with an app tracking their movements. The searchers could use the app to plot things on a map. They plotted what they observed while out searching. The total area they covered within that four-and-a-half-mile radius was equivalent to a combined 44,000 acres.”

Law enforcement employed every available resource to locate Sebastian. They used not only ground searchers but also fire departments and mounted patrols. Resources also included ATVs, search and rescue canines, drones, helicopters, and even an airplane. 

During day two of the search, the Sumner County Sheriff’s Department reached out to the FBI for assistance and specific resources that could potentially help find Sebastian, who has high-functioning autism. 

“I contacted our FBI Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team for initial consults, and then they brought in the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit to assist,” said Barrett. “The BAU shared a statistic that about 50% of autistic children are prone to wander. They are also naturally drawn to bodies of water, and 71% of fatal outcomes involving missing autistic children were a result of drowning.”

“That information helped us focus search efforts in and around bodies of water. The search team drained ponds and searched waterways and lakes looking for Sebastian.”

In addition, law enforcement searched almost every home in the neighborhood. Video recordings from nearby homes showed that Katie and Sebastian didn’t leave the house after their return home from dinner. A dashboard camera in Katie’s car confirmed this. No other cars were seen coming or going from Katie’s home during the evening. None were seen in the early morning hours either on the night or day Sebastian disappeared.

“We have followed through on every tip that has come in,” said Josh Savley, special agent in charge for the Criminal Investigation Division at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. “Some of those tips, we continue to examine at a deeper level, but the vast majority we have cleared as either being irrelevant or ended with no results.”

During day two of the search, the Sumner County Sheriff’s Department reached out to the FBI for assistance. They requested specific resources that could potentially help find Sebastian. Sebastian has high-functioning autism. 

The lack of answers in the search for Sebastian has pushed the community to widely share the story on online platforms—but law enforcement reminds the public to be wary of misinformation from unverified sources.

“Sebastian’s disappearance has deeply affected our community,” said Carter. “We understand the desire for the community to want answers and for us to explain every step of this investigation, but we can’t release all the case details without risking the integrity of the investigation. We ask that the community refocus on what matters most, and that’s finding Sebastian. Staying united and supportive will bring us closer to the answers that we’re looking for.”

If you have any information concerning the whereabouts of Sebastian Rogers, please contact the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office at 615-451-3838, or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND or TipsToTBI@tbi.tn.gov.

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